Latency on Wireless network.

20 Apr 2005 9:42 PM

Gareth Evans

Hello there

I have recently just had 2MB ADSL (Nildram) installed and noticed that when
playing
games online it appears to be intermittantly "jerky" ie. I stop moving then
I start again.

I have run Counterstrike and Team Fortress Classic and both have "netraphs"
which show packets in/out, FPS (frames per second) and MS (millisecs). I
also ran Battlefield: Vietnam and when it gets "jerky" I get a "Warning!
Connection problems" (words to that effect).

With CS and TFC the netgraph seemed to "peak" and then return to normal. I
have timed it and it is approx every 1minute this happens, this is in all
the 3 games I have played.

So every 1 minute or so my Internet connection "pauses" then resumes hence
the jerkiness.

My setup is as follows a Belkin 54Mbps Wireless USB adapter picking up my
Netgear DG834G Wireless router. I have secured the wireless network with
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key).

Signal strength appears ok but can anyone help as to what could be causing
the latency every 1 minute or so?

I have connected direct to the router using an ethernet cable and found no
problems. So I guess its down to the wireless network but I do not know how
narrow it down to the wireless router interuppting the connection or whether
its WinXP doing something every minute or so.

Thanks

Gareth

21 Apr 2005 9:31 PM

Peter Bui[MS]

Possibly since you are using WPA-PSK your wireless router is renegotiating
session keys every 60 seconds (a common default setting). You can try using
WEP and seeing if that makes a difference, but WEP is less secure.

Ideally speaking, since real time FPS games are highly latency sensitive,
meaning an extra 30ms lag could be the difference between life or death,
most hardcore gamers will keep things on the wire.

Show quoteHide quote

"Gareth Evans" <evans_garet***@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y8KdnWcACfBKUfvfRVnyjg@pipex.net...
> Hello there
>
> I have recently just had 2MB ADSL (Nildram) installed and noticed that
> when playing
> games online it appears to be intermittantly "jerky" ie. I stop moving
> then
> I start again.
>
> I have run Counterstrike and Team Fortress Classic and both have
> "netraphs"
> which show packets in/out, FPS (frames per second) and MS (millisecs). I
> also ran Battlefield: Vietnam and when it gets "jerky" I get a "Warning!
> Connection problems" (words to that effect).
>
> With CS and TFC the netgraph seemed to "peak" and then return to normal. I
> have timed it and it is approx every 1minute this happens, this is in all
> the 3 games I have played.
>
> So every 1 minute or so my Internet connection "pauses" then resumes hence
> the jerkiness.
>
> My setup is as follows a Belkin 54Mbps Wireless USB adapter picking up my
> Netgear DG834G Wireless router. I have secured the wireless network with
> WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key).
>
> Signal strength appears ok but can anyone help as to what could be causing
> the latency every 1 minute or so?
>
> I have connected direct to the router using an ethernet cable and found no
> problems. So I guess its down to the wireless network but I do not know
> how narrow it down to the wireless router interuppting the connection or
> whether its WinXP doing something every minute or so.
>
> Thanks
>
> Gareth
>
>